Search form

You are here

Winters in Nebraska a hard sell to snowbirds

Submitted by Aurora1 on Wed, 09/23/2015 - 3:00am

The betterhalf and I were among retirees in Minnesota this past week and most of the Minnesotans were preparing to head for winter homes in Arizona or Florida. As they expounded on heading south for the winter one of the couples inquired, “Where do you winter?” We quickly replied, “Nebraska.”It was worth the expression we saw on several faces as we described our winters in Nebraska and what they were missing if they didn’t winter with us. Surprisingly they turned down our offer.I rattled off that Nebraska was just a one day trip to our winter headquarters and find it not necessary to make motel reservations for a trip longer than one day of travel. I told them January and February were the best months to winter in the Husker state and from that period on we have a mixture of warm and cold, snow, sleet or rain . . . and we’re free of sinkholes, sandstorms . . . and the golf courses have abundance of tee times. Of course our message wasn’t taken seriously by the group of “Snowbirds.” That’s good because my comments to them weren’t that serious either.While I must admit I really don’t mind wintering in Nebraska, I do get more hankering each year to spend a couple of weeks a little farther south with some warmer temps. However, about the time my desire for a sunny, warm getaway, the ol’ Cornhusker state seems to enter the global warming sequence and we can enjoy some sun and temps above freezing for a short week. Which now brings us back to a familiar saying: “If you don’t like the weather in Nebraska, stick around a day or so because it will change.”***We were invited by several of my college friends to join them in Lincoln for lunch and visit with a mutual fraternity brother who was traveling through the state. After many years of marriage our wives do not hesitate to speak up and say you guys go eat where you want and we’ll drive to our preferred spot. Since we have only one “smart phone” among us, I asked if someone could call for the betterhalf to pick me up. Only one person in our group had a cellphone and that belonged to his wife . . . and he didn’t know how to use it. Six heads got together and we stumbled through it and made contact for our transportation.It’s comforting to know I was joined with other college graduates who are technologically illiterate and also have wives who take care of them.RL Furse is publisher emeritus of the News-Register